


Generalísimo Francisco Franco is still dead

by WolfOfAnsbach



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - 1970s, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, and jughead doesn't commandeer a tank this time, he's getting old, no massive over the top gunfights in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 03:23:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19123558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfOfAnsbach/pseuds/WolfOfAnsbach
Summary: With the end of the Franco dictatorship, Jughead Jones, along with Cheryl Blossom and Betty Cooper, returns to Spain one more time.





	Generalísimo Francisco Franco is still dead

**Author's Note:**

> I suspect this will have very little impact if you haven't read Interbellum (which is a tall order to be fair), but if you wish to read anyways: in the 1930s, Jughead and Jason Blossom fought with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, and Jason died in battle at Jarama. (Meanwhile back home there was some convoluted hullabaloo with Cheryl and Betty frustrating a fascist takeover of the US). 
> 
> It's weird for me to imagine these characters in their fifties, but kind of fun.

_Ring ring!_

Jughead shoots awake from a dream in which he is playing cards with Jomini in the Ardennes forest under heavy artillery fire. The phone’s ringing off the hook. His eyes are blurry. Betty snores comfortably next to him. He gropes for the receiver. Brings it to his lips.

“The rat bastard’s dead!” comes the giddy voice.

Jughead shakes his head. He slips open the curtain a mite. It’s still dark, save for a few slivers of light on the horizon.

“Who’s dea—Jesus, Cheryl, what is it, _five_?”

She gives her answer, and his eyes pop open.

Jughead scrambles upright. Betty shakily hoists herself up on her elbows next to him.

“Jugh—what—“

But Jughead’s already scrambling out of bed and stumbling half-asleep across the room. Betty watches him go, deeply confused. Her husband reappears a minute later, still shirtless and barefoot. He flicks on the light. And she notices a wine bottle in his hand. _The_ wine bottle. Spanish _cava._ Oh. _Now_ she gets it.

He pops the cork.

“ _Hasta la vista_ you fascist son of a bitch! _No pasarán!_ ”

Champagne spatters the wall.

“Oh,” Betty says. “Franco finally bit the dust?” She weakly gets out of bed. “Took him long enough.”

"Mommy?" an eight year old child in a shirt three sizes too big shuffles into the hall, rubbing her eyes. "What—"

"It's nothing, sweetheart," Jughead says, rubbing his daughter's head. "Go back to sleep." 

Cheryl’s already got all the party supplies set and ready to go. Everyone’s at her place by 5:00 that evening. Toni—Cheryl’s girlfriend of more than twenty years now—opens the door to let Betty and Jughead in.

“Long time no see,” she throws her arms around Jughead’s shoulders. They step inside. Archie and Veronica are already there, glasses of champagne in their hands. Jughead sets the _cava_ down on the table.

“Sorry I popped it open at home. I got a bit carried away.”

“We’re all basking in the base vindication of this moment,” Cheryl assures him.

And then she produces a cake iced with a shattered swastika.

They drink and talk into the evening. Spain and its ruling dictatorship has been something of a touchstone for their multifaceted bond since the days of the war. Now that it’s crumbling at last, there’s a strange sense of uncertainty in the air. 

On the TV, Nixon calls Franco a "loyal friend and ally of the United States." Toni flips off the screen.

A little before midnight, Cheryl sits down next to a tipsy Jughead.

“Remember what you told me? Back then?” she asks.

“Hmm?”

“You said one day, after Franco was gone, we’d go to Spain, and you’d show me…everything.”

He nods. “Of course. The promise stands.”

* * *

The restoration of Spanish democracy is not without its obstacles. Francoist hardliners cling tenaciously to the legacy of the Leader, even as his corpse is returned to the earth. The reemergence of the long buried left parties into national political life is an awkward, shambling one.

A general election is slated for 1977, the first since the one that triggered the country’s civil war in 1936. For the first time in decades, the socialists and even the communists are poised to reenter the long dormant _cortes_.

A few months ahead of the election, Jughead Jones purchases three first-class airline tickets to Madrid-Barajas Airport. Archie had declined to come along, citing a sudden rash of gigs (it seems folk is seeing a sudden resurgence). So had Toni and Veronica, each unable to make the time. Toni and Veronica do, however, graciously offer to take turns watching the Jones children while their mother and father are away. 

So Jughead, Cheryl, and Betty fly out of JFK in February 1977. Staring down into the blue Atlantic from a window seat, Cheryl mutters: “I can’t believe we used to have to do this _by ship_.”

“Yeah, well, it had _character_ ,” Jughead answers.

“If you guys could stop bickering for just…part of the flight,” Betty sighs, closing her eyes and leaning back into the headrest. A moment later the attendant comes by with drinks.

The airplane touches down at the break of dawn. Betty is jolted awake by the wheels against the tarmac.

Everyone is exhausted by the flight. They check into a reasonably priced Hotel not far from the airport, and go out to get a bite to eat.

When Jughead sets foot on the Gran Via again, the tears immediately spring to his eyes. A pressure builds in his chest. Time dissolves around him. A strange dissonance settles over the scene. It’s so _unreal_. There are no tanks. No _milicianos_ in their blue overalls, toting rifles and raising clenched fists. No red banners draping the windows and balconies. No fascist warplanes overhead. He takes a step forward, and his knee buckles.

Betty puts a hand on his shoulder and helps him steady himself.

“You okay?” she asks.

“I’m fine,” he says. He wipes away a tear. He sweeps his eyes down the broad avenue, and he sees himself, forty years younger, marching in lockstep, ten abreast. At his side are Jason Blossom and Arno Reisman. He sniffles.

The crowds are thin today, lazy. They drift in and out of shops, movies, theaters. Young. Happy. Couples walk arm in arm and groups of friends laugh and joke. There are no rifles or cannon.

“We marched right by here,” Jughead says, motioning along the wide thoroughfare. “You should have heard them cheer.” He smiles sadly. “They shouted ‘ _vivan los rusos_!’ you know, because they thought we were Soviet troops.” He laughs a little.

They stop in at a little cafe. A friendly waitress takes their orders.

“Don’t skip on the sugar or the milk, if you please,” Cheryl says. “ _Gracias_.”

“First time in Spain?” asks the waitress.

“I’ve been here once,” Jughead says. He looks at the young woman. She can’t be more than twenty. She would not have even been born. Perhaps not even her mother. “It was a long, long time ago.”

The woman nods and smiles. She brings their coffee a moment later. Betty rubs the scar on her throat. It’s long since stopped hurting. It’s more a tic than anything.

He takes them down to the Hotel Florida. Or at least—he tries. For Jughead finds it’s long since been demolished. That hurts a little. A store stands there now.

“I drank your brother under the table more than once, there,” Jughead says.

“Don’t doubt it,” Cheryl replies.

“I’m sorry it’s gone, Jug,” Betty says. She rubs his arm.

He nods.

They go back to their hotel. The next morning, Jughead wakes up early. Betty’s still fast asleep, snoring softly. Jughead kisses her gently on the cheek and heads down to the lobby.

He runs into Cheryl there, as awake as him, going through cigarettes like candy.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Tops,” she responds.

He still can’t get over it. Everything is so _calm_. Every minute he expects to hear the blast of artillery in the distance.

He sits next to her and takes a cigarette.

“Take me to Jarama,” she asks.

He knew it was coming. He’s been dreading as much as anticipating it. He stands. Nods.

They catch a taxi cab.

“ _Donde van?”_

“ _El río de Jarama_ ,” says Jughead. “ _Sabés donde esta el campo de batalla_?”

“You are American?” asks the cabbie, in English.

“Yes,” Jughead says.

“You want to see the old Jarama battlefield?”

“Yes, sir.”

The cabbie turns around.

“Why?”

Jughead pauses for a moment. He doesn’t know the man’s political inclinations. If his family was for the fascists, admitting his history might net him a punch to the face. But he decides to chance it.

“Because I was there.”

The man stares at him for a moment. Then his face breaks into a broad smile. He reaches back and shakes Jughead’s hand with both of his.

“ _Mucho gusto, mucho gusto_! You know, my uncle took a bullet at Jarama!” And in high spirits, he takes them out on the country road south of the city. “The fascists did not like people snooping round the field too much, but the fucker Franco’s dead now, eh?”

“Indeed!” says Cheryl.

He drops them in a tiny village a mile from the Jarama River. Only a little further to the old field of battle. Jughead tips the cabbie. Then he leads Cheryl over the ragged, folded red earth. The river hisses in the distance. They walk through the quiet, shadowy olive groves. The leaves rustle over their heads. It’s lonely today. Not too many families on picnics or fisherman on the river.

It all comes back. He smells cordite and gunsmoke. He hears tank engines and the incessant rattling of machine guns. Corpses strewing the dusty earth. Jason’s blood covering his hands.

He takes her up on a little rise. It affords a decent, sweeping view of the pretty valley. There are less trees than he recalls.

“This is where we made the charge. I don’t remember where he—well, not exactly. I’m sorry. I’m getting old.”

Cheryl shakes her head.

“It’s fine.” She cracks a smile. “So am I.” She sticks her hands into her pockets and looks out over the tranquil field of slaughter. The blood has long since soaked into the earth. “It’s beautiful,” she sighs. A few tears trickle down her cheeks. “If this is the last thing Jason saw—well, I could imagine worse.”

He smiles.

“I’m sorry I can’t show you a grave or—“

“No. It doesn’t matter.”

After an afternoon spent wandering the old, lonely field, they stroll back into the village. At a little pub, Jughead rings the hotel and lets a slightly worried Betty know where they’ve gone. She’s figured as much anyhow. She’ll see them when they get back.

Jughead and Cheryl pick a corner table, order beers, and talk a bit more. Stories of Spain. More recent tales. Halfway through their drinks, a woman a few tables over stands and strides in their direction. Again, Jughead tenses. He was talking a bit loudly. This woman might either cheer him or spit in his face. She stands over him. She looks about their age, maybe a bit younger. Early fifties, late forties. She’s well-built, probably a laboring peasant’s life, like most in the bar.

She looks down at them.

“ _Quince Brigada_? _Batallón Lincóln_?” she asks.

“That’s right,” Cheryl answers for him. “Is there—“

The woman smiles.

“Welcome back to Spain, _compañero_!”

Jughead sighs in relief. He extends a hand. She takes it.

“What was it they called you in those days? When you fought the fascist army?” she asks. “ _Torombolo_?”

His mouth falls open. He furrows his brow. Cheryl looks at him weird.

“I—I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t—“

“No, I guess you wouldn’t know me,” she says, a little sadly. “My name is Isabel Rosales. My father was called Mariano.”

Jughead smiles, and new tears spring into his eyes. He looks at Cheryl, who understands. He’s told her enough stories of Mariano, the big militiaman who’d recruited him and Jason in Barcelona. Who’d fought with them in Toledo and Madrid.

“Your father was a good man,” Jughead says. “I was proud to have known him.”

“Before he went into France, at the end of the war,” she says. “He talked about you. And your friend, the redhead. He said if all the world had been like you two, there never would have been any fascism in Spain.”

“This is Jas—er, your father liked to call him _Jacinto_. This is his sister.”

“ _Enchanté_ ,” says Cheryl, and she shakes the woman’s hand.

Jughead wipes away another tear. Maria sits with them. They drink and talk a while longer. Then Cheryl says that she _does_ wish there was a grave she could pay her respects to.

Maria smiles weakly.

“Stand up,” she says. “I want to show you two something.”

They follow her out of the pub. It’s already growing dark. The last slivers of sunlight cling tenaciously to the horizon. Maria takes them out of the village, over a few little hills, down into a grove of olive trees.

“Are we getting robbed?” Cheryl hisses.

“Shut up!” Jughead hisses.

In the middle of the grove is a clearing. Large, but not too large. Subtly, but fastidiously kept. Off to the side is a stone. A wide, flat stone. There is a wreath of flowers laid gently atop it.

“After the battle,” says Maria. “The fascists came and they piled up the bodies and shoveled them into ditches. Burned them. They wouldn’t cover them with soil. But after some time, when they were not watching so closely, some of us went—I must have been ten or eleven, then. We went, and we took as many as we could, and we buried them here.” She turns to Jughead, somber. “I think, _Torombolo_ , that your friends are here.” And then she turns to Cheryl. “And, _señora_ , I think probably, your brother, too.”

Cheryl swallow and nods, unable to speak. Jughead kneels down. He touches the stone. Carved roughly into the grainy surface with what might have been a knife or bayonet are four words:

 _Caídos por la libertad_ —‘fallen for freedom’.

And suddenly he’s sobbing. So is Cheryl.

“We’ve come here, those who still remember, ever since then. You see the flowers there—I know it is crude,” Maria says. “But if the guard had caught us tending to—“

“No,” Cheryl cut her off. “It’s beautiful.” 

Maria produces a flower from her skirts. She holds it out to Cheryl. "Would you like to—"

She nods and smiles. Then she kneels down and gently lays it atop the stone. 

She hugs Jughead. And Maria embraces them. And they weep together, tears of loss and satisfaction. Tears of struggle and victorious elation.

Over their heads, the olive branches rustle softly.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess it was only a matter of time before I returned to this universe, since it's kind of my baby. Hell, I've got the whole thing more or less worked out, all of the way to everyone's deaths in the 90s-early 2000s (sad face)


End file.
